[MH] First Communion [Te 2.8] [Nx2.7]

Okay, Teddy, you're finally alone, riding in the dark. It's quiet, except for the occasional car, the nighttime noises of the woods, the hum of your tires and the sound of the chain mechanism. You can still smaell the ocean, of course, and the trees. It's been an awesome night so far, huh? What are your thoughts like right now?

Where do you go, exactly? And you'll have to tell me a little about this Ketamine thing.

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Well, I'm getting better, actually. This isn't, like, going dancing or something, but biking along like this I can focus on the ride and it's easier to zone out, let the ecstasy take over. My high is building to its plateau now, so for maybe the next few hours that, uh, jealousy, insecurity, all that kind of bleeds away. The usual euphoria isn't really setting in, but after tonight ... well, maybe it'll come later.

This isn't what I do E for, usually. I'm usually going out dancing, dressed up, with friends, already feeling pretty good. So I'm taking the pills because they make everything, like, supersaturated, all my senses dialed to eleven, music just working its way right into my head. I get all this energy, and, uh, MDMA is an entactogen, you know? That means it tunes you into the people around you, all empathically, it does this whole tribal identity loving sharing thing in your head.

Now with ecstasy going in me I could just cruise for hours like this, but I didn't bring my water or warm up or anything, so I could probably hurt myself if I don't watch it. So I'm coming up along Somes Sound, and I know I should find a place to stop.

Um, you know how there's some vacation houses along here? There's a big place along, uh, right up here! I'll pull up here. There's a kind of a gate across the driveway, but the wall doesn't go all the way around the property, so I'm just walking my bike around through the trees.

I wouldn't ever mess with the house, since I bet it has a crazy security system, but I'll circle around and go down to the dock in back. They have a kind of a gazebo thing back there, all redwood and wrought iron. Eric showed me the place, and we came down here a few times.

Yeah, this is, remember how I said Eric got that little scar, playing with fireworks? This is where we were when that happened. It's nice, there's basically forest all around, you can sit down in the gazebo and look out over the Sound, and the memories here ... they're actually pretty good ones, aren't they?

Now, ketamine. Yeah, it's not a party drug. It's actually a medical anesthetic - it's, um, an NMDA receptor antagonist, which means it dissociates you from your body. So when you take it you mostly just lay around all zoned out and clumsy, it's really anti-social. And you shouldn't try to move around much anyway, since yeah, medical anesthetic. You can totally hurt yourself and not even know it.

Taking it with ecstasy is called kitty flipping. You sort of flip back and forth between the entactogenic high of the E and the dissociative high of the ketamine. Though with the doses we're talking about here, it's going to be mostly the ketamine. Not that I'm taking a whole bunch of K, it's just that it's a stronger drug and you've got to be really high for E to balance it out.

A lot of people snort ketamine as a powder, but that sort of weirds me out. It's like, you're really a junkie if you're snorting white powder off of a mirror, you know? It also makes the high, like, really fast and intense and sort of scary.

What I have is a little pill, I'm just dry-swallowing it without any drama. It'll take about twenty minutes to kick in, which I'll spend kind of watching the water and making myself relax, and then the ketamine high will be over in no more than two hours. I'll still be high on E at that point, but I'll be coming down enough to not be all twitchy at Ash's place.

Uh, and why do I do ketamine? It's dissociative, like I said, but it's also ... it does this thing, they say it simulates catatonic schizophrenia. You can forget who you are, experience entire other, like, worlds so weird you can't even describe them when you wake up. Well, not "wake up", but it is kind of like dreaming.

And I told you about the eight-circuit model of consciousness before, right? Ketamine is one of the ways to unlock the last, eighth circuit, which plugs you into, like, the whole world. I don't do ketamine very often, since it can be kind of scary, but when I do I have these vivid impressions of ... all kinds of things. And they usually turn out true.

Yeah, I'm looking for that voice from this morning. It said it was interested in me? And it protected me. So ... I want to know more. And I don't know if this is the way to get in touch with it, him? But right now I've got like two different kinds of drug-induced psychic powers going on, so maybe something will stick.

And um, yeah, I guess there are things I want to know. I mean, obviously there's Aubrey, dead, and this thing like how can I deal with Deputy Cross? And I want to know about Holly.

But, those aren't - I mean maybe I should be wondering about Aubrey at least, but really what I want to know is, how can I make Nula mine?

Oh, the ketamine? I'm dealing myself 1-harm for Downward Spiral. I said I wasn't taking a lot, but that's from the drug user's perspective. From the clinical perspective, yeah, I'm way overdoing it. It's normally just an anesthetic, not used to induce a state of catatonic schizophrenia. Not only might I bang myself up while heavily anesthetized and in poor control of my body, but there are other possible side effects, particularly memory loss.

Commune with the Faery King: #DiceRoller( 2d6+4 )

On a 7-9, the visions are clear, but the demands a favor of me.

On a 10+, the visions are lucid and detailed, and I get a String on the Faery King.

Well you could go about this a few ways. Nula probably would have accepted your offer if you had made it there earlier, if you had been there for her, and if she hadn't "met" Jarrod. Now she's focused (obsessed?) on him....or is it a boy who looks like him? If he were to be removed from the picture...and then Teddy was there for her, to comfort her, that would work. If Teddy discovers Nula's secret, she could use that to either blackmail her (Slightly evil? "I'll help you get your pelt back if you go out with me"?) or more nicely as like a "I understand you better than anyone else, you don't have to pretend around me" type of thing. But really, your main problem right now is going to be Jarrod.

So it almost sneaks up on you. HIs presence. A moment there is just the water and the wind through the trees then suddenly that presence that seems to fill the world with power, like everything just seems to vibrate, generating a pitch that combines into a strange kind of chorus.

At the same time you know you're not... this isn't a real place, not exactly. It's like a shadow of the real place, or maybe the real place is a shadow of it.

The presence. It wonders at you. Do you want to become part of it, to receive a Fae heart like Nyx? It's not up to granting such a thing just yet, but it finds your temerity... interesting. Oh yes... the water child. You get an image of Nula. Nyx has something, a blanket, a robe, something very important to Nula. Beyond important, part of her. And she's desperate to get it back. The images you get, the same area around Myrii's pond, or close by. What else in your way? The boy ties into old, deep memories for her, but he's like a ghost with two slightly different faces. He needs to be thwarted.

Holly. Images of Ashley playing with a doll, babying it. A puppet that seems to be controlled by a little girl peeking over the tops of the rooms. Somehow it is the little girl, in a big girl suit. But there's a strange emptiness there a sense of being alien, but not in the way of the Presence, which though strange seems...right, part of the world. No, this thing is separate from the world, but trying to fit itself in.

The human woman bothering you? The presences suggests you kill her, bring her to the woods and she will never be found. She is dangerous to you.

Yeah it does. That was crazy, I'm having trouble sorting out what was the high and what was, I don't know, something else. The cop lady is dangerous? I can't kill her, I mean ... but is she really that dangerous? This thing about Holly, what is it? It's just like what I saw that first time I met her, the doll with fake eyes. How do I thwart Jarrod? And does that mean I'd have a chance if he weren't around?

I want to know more, but it's melting away, dialing back to a more normal world. I guess I don't feel too desperate about it, either. Coming up is like surfacing from down deep in salt water, and I feel okay to just float for a while, listening to the night and the waves, feeling the smooth redwood planks against my skin. And at the same time I'm feeling actually really horny. Is that weird? Not in an urgent way, just kind of warm and comfortable.

I don't ... well I didn't really want to be like Nyx, I hadn't thought about it. But is this what he's talking about, when he's, you know, kind of going on? Or is it different for him? And he took something from Nula ...

It's a little while longer, I'm not sure how long, before I remember to pull out my phone and check the time. How long's it been?

That's kind of short for a ketamine high. It might be the pill was cut down, or it might be it was something to do with, um, whatever that was. Though I better watch it, I'm kitty flipping, so this could just be a lucid phase, and it might come back for round two. Special K is really unpredictable, so who knows? So, like, that means no biking anywhere for, you know, at least an hour.

The E is starting to pop again, though, telling me to get up and do something, act on all this weird I just got in my head. Hey, you know? I'm not too far from the school right now. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna get out of here, head north to Eagle Lake Road. I'll walk my bike. That's the fastest way back to Bar Harbor, anyhow.

I'll go back to school, and maybe find that bag of stuff, the one from my locker, you know? Or if I feel the ketamine coming back, I'll just go into the forest a little way and chill.

No, I forgot something. I'm sitting up to go get my bike, and I remember Amy, and I'm suddenly guilty. I fed her her first pill ever, then left her there. I could've gone back down after Nula left, but I was too ... well, I guess she's gone by now, right? But maybe I should check ...

You see that the officers cleared the beach. Not supposed to be out there at night anyway. Amy was one of the last to go. She sat looking at the water while the E took over and pushed up her mood. She was still sad, but it wasn't so close to her, you know. When the cops cleared the beach she left, since she drove, taking her car and heading home. You realize you know where she lives. It's not real far from your place, actually.

You get a vision of the look on Amy's face, watching Jarrod and Nula together. You see Amy through the summer, working with the books she loves, being cheerful and generally liked by the people who interact with her. Including Nula. You see the incident where Nula was picking flowers she wasn't supposed to and was confronted by Deputy Cross on it. Amy stepped in to help, and became Nula's first friend here.

Amy feels enormously compassionate towards Nula, because Nula always seemed slightly sad and homesick and Amy knows what that's like. She moved here from Illinois a few years ago when her Dad went to work for the laboratory on the island here, and she missed it every day for at least a year. You see her back in Illinois with a large group of friends, people she'd known since she started school. Then suddenly she's in a strange place, having to make new friends.

You see an image of Amy's family at some kind of celebration...a birthday party. A boy is there who by his looks can only be her older brother. He's holding the hand of another boy. She was there for that, when her brother came out, and supported him when he told their parents. So when Nula looked at you she supported that too.

She really values her friends, and she's sad about the Nula/Jarrod thing but she won't abandon Nula over it. At least, not yet. Being actual friends with her might help you in several ways. Keeping close to Nula. Thwarting Jarrod. All sorts of things.

Okay, at least she made it home okay. So I'll walk my bike up Eagle Lake Road, like I was thinking. It's creepy, going through the forest at night like that (creepier than when I'm riding my bike like I usually do), but it's the direct way back. And it's not like I haven't been along the road a hundred times before, you know, like after closing up the station at night.

I'm not sure how often you've been high while doing it either, so maybe that helps a little, I don't know.

But sure, you make it to school. Through the darkened parking lot and field and out to where you hid the bag in the woods. You don't feel the K high return at all. So are you really headed to Ashley's tonight or do you have other plans at this point?

Yeah, I'm going to see Ash. It'd be a long night, alone at the apartment with Mom at work, and I could use a little bit of, like, girl whatever tonight. There's a couple things I wanna check out, though, and with the ketamine gone early, then I can just bike to Ash's, so I'll end up being there pretty much when I told her.

Though, uh, I'm getting off my bike and looking into the forest, and I gotta admit I'm kind of, you know, not sure. The woods are scary in the middle of the night, aren't they? But that's what E is for, all tingly and fearless, so it'll be an adventure, like a distraction from, you know, Nula and stuff. I'll swipe into the studio and grab the emergency flashlight from under the desk, then head into the trees.

You said I find the bag alright? I scrub my hands on my jeans, get off my jacket to bundle up the bag without really touching it, and head into the woods with my light. I'm looking for Myrii's pond, but I guess I'm not one hundred percent on how to get there, 'specially at night, and I was kind of fuzzy, last time I came this way.

If I gotta, I'll gaze into the abyss, try and remember that kind of weird feeling that led me there before. But if you think I have a good enough idea from walking around and back to school with Nyx, that's cool too.

On a 7-9, lucid visions but I'm drained. On a 10+, lucid visions and also tell me how best to deal with Myrii (for +1forward). I want to talk to her, but she did try to murder me the first time she saw me.

The forest is much different at night but you tune into that feeling from before and make your way to Myrii's pond. That's not so much a vision as picking up on the threads of... something... that run through the world it seems.

As you walk your mind conjures visions... Nyx and Myrii, right? They're so... so sensual and a little wild. Myrii more so than Nyx. You see visions of Nyx, embracing Myrii, kissing her, both of them naked in the water. It's that sexual energy that makes things that should come off as completely goofy just... work for Nyx, isn't it? It's like it rolls off of him. The couple in the water shift and turn, Myrii's alabaster-skinned back towards you as she nuzzles in to kiss and bite at her partners neck. You realize that it isn't Nyx, there in the water that she's kissing with intensity and hunger... it's you, naked in the water, exposing your throat to her and moaning.

Soon enough you find yourself at the pond. The water is still and shining in the moonlight.

And you know, I think, uh, I think I might be turning her on. She's sort of, like, predatory, right? And I'm right here at the water's edge, looking out into the dark, playing my flashlight out over the big pond, futilely trying to see if there's anything there under the dark water. It's very monster movie, maybe she gets off on my vulnerability.

Also, I'm kind of, you know, turned on myself, with one thing and another, and it really wouldn't surprise me, uh, can she like, smell? I mean, that'd be totally creepy, but she's got like pointy teeth and finger-claws and gold eyes and stuff, so ...

Well if you go over to the little nook in the pond where Aubrey's body is and shine the light down, yes, it's there. How long has it been in the water now? A while. It's not bloating or anything. She just looks asleep under the surface.

You lean over the water looking for Myrii, and the tension is already building right? This is kind of the deeper end of the pond, near Aubrey's body, not a shallow slide into the water.

So when Myrii rockets up in a whitish blur, right in front of your face (especially considering last time.) it scares the shit out of you. She doesn't grab you though, just splashes back down and laughs. Her golden eyes glitter as she floats in the water a few feet away obviously naked. They look kind of like a cat's eyes in the low light.

Other than the eyes of course, she looks just like the girl who's body is floating a few feet away.

So obviously I lurch away, and I tumble back onto my ass with an embarrassing sort of squeak thing, I didn't have the air right that second for a real scream. My heart's pumping, but I'm not really any less turned on, despite the, uh, Aubrey there. I remember to breathe again, and I scoot myself back a little, trying not to be obvious.

"Yeah, you ... um, hi? I just, uh, just wanted to ask you a couple, couple questions. If that's okay? You're trying to, to get back at whoever killed Aubrey, um, right?"

She cocks her head at you, eyes interested. Is her nose twitching? She then closes the distance to the shore fairly quickly. Not like she's lunging, just approaching you. How close are you? You were moving away but only a foot or two?

She reaches up and hauls herself partway out of the water. Her legs are still in but she's resting her elbows on the ground in front of you, clutching her hands together in front of her ribs. She's looking at you intently with those eyes, still smirking with Aubrey's full mouth. Clearly displaying herself... well... at least her current self, to you. Her nails and teeth look normal right now, as far as you can tell, but those eyes seem huge and are even stranger close up than from a distance.

"She died in my pond. Her heart's blood spilled into my waters. If her death was wrongful I must take revenge." Her voice is sensual, smooth. "Are you going to... help me, Teddy?"

She glances toward the jacket then back at you. She pulls herself the rest of the way out of the water slowly and perches there in front of you, lots of white skin.

"A gun..." She wets her lips and begins to move around you. "That is the device that makes holes in the body? Yes... Aubrey had such a hole, in her back. Here..." She's moved behind you, the last word is breathy, in your ear, and you feel the touch of a delicate fingertip next to your shoulderblade.